Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to pleated garments. More particularly, this disclosure relates to garments having a combination of one-way and two-way pleated fragments created in a single pleating operation. This disclosure also relates to methods and systems for manufacturing these garments.
Description of Related Art
The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Pleating of fabrics is widely known in the art. In general, pleating is a process of forming pleats, which involves folding a piece of fabric back onto itself to create pleats and securing the pleats in place. Pleats typically lie parallel to one another. The securing of pleats can be accomplished by stitching at one end so as to hold the pleated folds in place.
Pleating techniques are conventionally used in the clothing industry, which allow for gathering a wide piece of fabric to a narrower circumference. Many couture designers use pleating techniques to add structure and texture to clothing. Today, there are known several pleating methods including hand pleating and machine pleating. Some examples of known pleating techniques include Egyptian pleating, Miao pleating, Mariano Fortuny pleating, Issey Miyake pleating, Reiko Sudo pleating, and so forth.
The known pleating techniques for manufacturing pleated garments include two general steps. At a first step, prior to construction of a garment, fabric pieces are separately pleated and the pleats are secured in place by binding with stitching. At a second step, a garment is constructed by attaching the pleated fabric pieces together. These techniques, however, limit design variations of garments and complicate the overall garment manufacturing process.